Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Happy 9th Birthday, Watson & Crick

September 25, 2020 by Beth

Yesterday, Watson and Crick turned 9. I was going to write this blog posting yesterday, but then Crick jumped on my lap and so I couldn’t get up to get my laptop, as it would be wrong to disturb a cat that is happily sitting on one’s lap on any day, let alone her birthday. And after about half an hour, when she decided to leave, Watson jumped on my lap. Watson rarely sits on my lap, so I definitely could not get up as long as he was there. I may have even dozed off for a while. And by the time he decided he was ready to head to bed and jumped off my lap, it was late and I was ready to go to bed too.

So here I am writing this posting on Watson & Cricking Day (which is, as we all know, the Boxing Day equivalent of Watson & Crickmas). I have to admit, just a few weeks ago I was worried that Crick might not make it to see her 9th birthday, so I am happy to report that while we still don’t 100% know what’s going on with her health-wise, she is currently in fine spirits and back to her old self – she jumps up on my desk when I’m working, she runs to get her treats at treat time, she’s eating all her food (and part of Watson’s), and she thoroughly enjoyed her birthday tuna.

Here she is on the day after her surgery. She had to wear this fancy scarf to make sure she didn’t scratch the incision in her neck while it healed.

We went back to the vet clinic to get her stitches removed and have a post-op check up the day before her birthday. The pathology report on her biopsy (since they weren’t able to remove the whole lump as originally planned, the chunk they took out was considered a biopsy) came back inconclusive. It looked like it could possibly be Hogkin’s-like lymphoma, but there was too much inflammation to tell for sure. It could also possibly be an infection that caused the inflammation. What remains of the lump has shrunk, which could be due to the prednisone she’s been on since her surgery (which is known to shrink lymphoma tumours), but she was also on an antibiotic for her stuffed up/running nose, which could have helped with an infection. The plan right now is to keep her on prednisone for two more weeks to make sure things are calmed down and then wean her off it. If it’s Hogkin’s-like lymphoma, the lump will start to grow again when she stops prednisone. If it was just an infection, it won’t. If it’s lymphoma, we will consider trying surgery again to remove what’s left of the lump (which should be easier to deal with because it’s been shrunk down and will be less inflamed, and thus less adhesive to the surrounding tissues – at least, that’s what we hoped). Staying on prednisone is also possible, but over the long-term can have adverse side effects like diabetes, joint problems, and susceptibility to infections. For now, I’m just taking it one day at a time and feeling grateful that Crick is feeling well.

I think both of the cats like that I work from home right now, but Watson especially loves when I have Zoom calls. As soon as he hears me talking to my computer screen, he’s up on the desk, walking past the webcam and onto my keyboard. Most of my colleagues have come to expect seeing a striped tail pass through the screen when I’m on a call. The other day when I was teaching, Watson jumped up on the desk, sat on my keyboard and deleted every single slide in the slide deck I was teaching from! Thank the FSM for the “undo” button!

The other thing Watson is very fond of is lunchtime yoga. My friend Cheryl (a.k.a., Greg) runs a twice weekly lunchtime yoga sessions for a group of friends (a.k.a., the New West Hockey Bitches). We always go through the same set of poses and Watson has learned the routine. He knows that my hand is going to go down to the mat on right at the start, so he sits there so that he’ll get petted. Then when we switch to the other side, he’ll go sit on my left where my hand is going to go down to the mat so he’ll get petted again. He also loves to sit underneath me when I do down dog. Crick is usually more of yoga spectator than a participant, but sometimes she will join in on the fun too.

I’m really lucky to have these two fuzzballs in my life.

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